Tag: Morphemes

Categories
Current Events

zhízhèng

zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring the article “Which Leader Will You Choose?—What Does the Bible Say?”, because, as the article says, “over the next few weeks, elections will be held in various countries around the world.”. The Mandarin version of this article uses what I think is an interesting expression in this context, this week’s MEotW “zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政)”.

Related Expressions

The “zhí (catch; capture [→ [hold [in the hand]; grasp]] [→ [persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of]] 执 執)” in “zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政)” has original meanings of “catch; capture”, from which are now often derived the meanings “hold [in the hand]; grasp”. It seems that these meanings in turn have led “zhí (catch; capture [→ [hold [in the hand]; grasp]] [→ [persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of]] 执 執)” to sometimes be used to effectively mean such varied things as “persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of”. Thus, “zhí (catch; capture [→ [hold [in the hand]; grasp]] [→ [persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of]] 执 執)” is a classic example of a word that has undergone what in linguistics is formally called semantic change, that is, changes in the meaning or meanings a word is used to represent.

Interestingly, in Cantonese, but apparently not in Mandarin, “zhí (catch; capture [→ [hold [in the hand]; grasp]] [→ [persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of]] 执 執)” also has a meaning of “pick up”. For example, those with Cantonese-speaking parents may have gotten used to being told to “jāp sáu méih (执手尾/執手尾)”, that is, to pick up after themselves or tidy up.

Some other Mandarin expressions that include the “zhí (catch; capture [→ [hold [in the hand]; grasp]] [→ [persist in; stick to | carry out; implement; execute; observe | direct; manage; take charge of]] 执 執)” in “zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政)” are:

  • zhíbǐzhě (zhí·bǐ·zhě {caught → [grasped]} · pen · person → [writer] 执笔者 執筆者)

    • Those who have been in the Mandarin field for a while may have seen this used, for example, in “Shīpiān (Shī·piān {Sacred Song} · {Piece of Writing} → [Psalm] 诗篇 詩篇) zhíbǐzhě (zhí·bǐ·zhě {caught → [grasped]} · pen · person → [writer] 执笔者 執筆者)”, which means “Psalm writer”, or “psalmist”.
  • zhíxíng (zhí·xíng {catch → [hold; grasp] → [carry out; implement; execute]} · {go; walk; travel → [do; perform; carry out]} 执行 執行)
  • zhízhǎng (zhí·zhǎng {catch; capture → [hold; grasp]} · {(have in) palm (of the hand)} → [wield; be in control of] 执掌 執掌)

    • An example of this expression in use can be found at Daniel 4:26.

A couple of Mandarin expressions that include the other morpheme in “zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政)” are:

  • zhèngfǔ (zhèng·fǔ political · {seat of government} → [government] 政府)
  • zhèngzhì (zhèng·zhì {politics | political} · governing [→ [politics | political]] 政治)

Usage Examples

Here are the two examples of “zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {catch; capture → [hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政)” being used in the above-mentioned article:

English:

Which Leader Will You Choose?

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Nǐ (You 你) Huì (Will 会 會) Zhīchí (Zhī·chí Support · {Hold → [Support]} 支持) Shéi (Whom 谁 誰) Zhízhèng (Zhí·zhèng {to Capture → [to Hold]} · {Government → [Political Power]} 执政 執政)?

English:

People are making important decisions about which leaders they will choose.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Rénmen (Rén·men person · [pl] → [people] 人们 人們) jiāng ({are going to} 将 將) zuòchū (zuò·chū make · out 作出) zhòngdà (zhòng·dà weighty · big 重大) de (’s 的) juédìng (decidings → [decisions] 决定 決定): Yào ((they) must → [will] 要) xuǎn (choose 选 選) shéi (whom 谁 誰) zhízhèng (zhí·zhèng {to capture → [to hold]} · {government → [political power]} 执政 執政).

Categories
Current Events Science

jùfēng

jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

During the week preceding the date of this post, Hurricane Ian hit the USA. As NBC News reported on the afternoon of Oct. 1, 2022:

The death toll from Hurricane Ian rose Saturday to more than 77 as one of strongest and costliest storms to ever hit the U.S. pushed northward from the Carolinas leaving in its wake a trifecta of misery—dangerous flooding, power outages and massive destruction.

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring the related article “Extreme Weather—Can the Bible Help You to Cope?”. The Mandarin version of this article uses this week’s MEotW, “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)”, to translate the English word “hurricane”.

Note that while one who is familiar with the Mandarin expression “dàfēng (dà·fēng {big → [strong]} · wind [→ [fresh gale]] 大风 大風)” (literally, “big wind”) might assume that the first morpheme in “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)” is the same as the first morpheme (meaning “huge; gigantic”) in “jùdà (jù·dà huge; gigantic · big 巨大)”, actually, the first morpheme in “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)” is a different one that specifically means “cyclone; hurricane; typhoon”.

A Tropical Cyclone by Any Other Name…

The English jw.org article mentioned above also mentions hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. The corresponding expressions used in the Mandarin version are, respectively, “jùfēng (jù·fēng hurricane · winds → [hurricanes] 飓风 颶風)”, “táifēng (tái·fēng typhoon · winds → [typhoons] 台风 颱風)”, and “qìxuán (qì·xuán air · circlings → [cyclones] 气旋 氣旋)”. What though, are the differences between hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones?

The US government’s National Ocean Service explains it like this:

The only difference between a hurricane and a typhoon is the location where the storm occurs.

…

Hurricanes and typhoons are the same weather phenomenon: tropical cyclones. A tropical cyclone is a generic term used by meteorologists to describe a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation.

The weakest tropical cyclones are called tropical depressions. If a depression intensifies such that its maximum sustained winds reach 39 miles per hour, the tropical cyclone becomes a tropical storm. Once a tropical cyclone reaches maximum sustained winds of 74 miles per hour or higher, it is then classified as a hurricane, typhoon, or tropical cyclone, depending upon where the storm originates in the world. In the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific, the term hurricane is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a typhoon. Meanwhile, in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean, the generic term tropical cyclone is used, regardless of the strength of the wind associated with the weather system.

Structure

Some might also find the following information interesting, on the structure and behaviour of tropical cyclones like hurricanes, etc.:

The main parts of a tropical cyclone are the rainbands, the eye, and the eyewall. Air spirals in toward the center in a counter-clockwise pattern in the northern hemisphere (clockwise in the southern hemisphere), and out the top in the opposite direction.

In the very center of the storm, air sinks, forming an “eye” that is mostly cloud-free.

Supercharged by Climate Change

Regarding hurricanes and similar storms, one thing that may be worthwhile to bring up in the field is that they are being made more destructive and difficult to predict by human-caused climate change.

An article on NASA’s website summarizes the situation and explains the basic mechanism:

Due to global warming, global climate models predict hurricanes will likely cause more intense rainfall and have an increased coastal flood risk due to higher storm surge caused by rising seas. Additionally, the global frequency of storms may decrease or remain unchanged, but hurricanes that form are more likely to become intense.

As surface temperatures rise, more liquid water evaporates from the land and ocean. Evaporation adds moisture to the air. How much water vapor the air can hold is based on its temperature. Warmer air temperatures can hold more water vapor. The increased moisture in the air leads to more intense rainfall, especially during extreme events.

In a hurricane, spiraling winds draw moist air toward the center, fueling the towering thunderstorms that surround it. As the air continues to warm due to climate change, hurricanes can hold more water vapor, producing more intense rainfall rates in a storm.

Moreover, …most models show that climate change brings a slight increase in hurricane wind intensity. This change is likely related to warming ocean temperatures and more moisture in the air, both of which fuel hurricanes.

Another article, on the Yale Climate Connections website, discusses a phenomenon called rapid intensification:

Rapid intensification, defined as an increase of wind speed of at least 35 mph in 24 hours, has recently garnered a lot of attention…

…human-caused warming significantly increases extreme tropical cyclone intensification rates…

Rapid intensification is one of the least well-predicted tropical cyclone processes and also one of the most dangerous, because storms that intensify quickly tend to catch people off guard.

By the way, the Mandarin expression currently used on jw.org to translate “climate change” is “qìhòu (qì·hòu {air → [weather]} · conditions → [climate] 气候 氣候) biànhuà (biàn·huà changing · transforming 变化 變化)”.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Technology

yǔyán

yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The Mandarin field is an example of a language field. What though, is a language? For a long time, the production output of the earthly part of Jehovah’s organization was exclusively or mainly paper publications. So, when it would count the languages it was supporting in its production, it was really counting the writing systems that it printed on paper. Meanwhile, in worldly Chinese culture, there is an obsession with the Chinese characters writing system, which has become a proud and deeply embedded cultural tradition. Such factors may influence people serving in the Mandarin field to focus on the Chinese characters writing system when they think of the Mandarin language.

However, linguists, people who study language scientifically, hold that when it comes to languages, speech is primary, and writing is secondary. This excerpt from the MEotW post on “zuìchū (zuì·chū most · {at the beginning} [→ [initial[ly]; prime; [at] first; original[ly]]] 最初)” summarizes the scientific evidence in this regard:

First Things First in Language Learning

The way God made us, zuìchū (zuì·chū most · {at the beginning} 最初), language-wise, there was speech. Only later did imperfect humans eventually come up with some writing systems to visually represent and record some forms of speech. Indeed, there have been, and there still are, many speech-only languages, with no corresponding writing system. Ethnologue, a resource on world languages, says:

Ethnologue (24th edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,139 living languages, 4,065 have a developed writing system. We don’t always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 3,074 are likely unwritten.

Technological First Priority

Writing systems are technologies. About writing, linguist Gretchen McCulloch says:

It really is a technology. It’s a thing you do on top of language to do stuff with language, but it’s not the language itself. There are thousands and possibly millions of languages that have never been written down in the history of humanity. We have no idea. We’ve never met a society of humans, or heard of a society of humans, without language. But those are spoken and signed languages, which are just kind of there. Writing, by contrast, was invented somewhere between 3 and 4 times in the history of humanity.

What Do the Words Actually Mean?

It’s also worth considering the actual root meanings contained in the words used in English and Mandarin to mean “language”. Regarding the etymology of the English word “language”, the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

late 13c., langage “words, what is said, conversation, talk,” from Old French langage “speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *linguaticum, from Latin lingua “tongue,” also “speech, language,” from PIE [Proto-Indo-European] root *dnghu- “tongue.”

Clearly, the focus of the root meanings above is on speech and the tongue, which is used for speech—writing is not even mentioned.

Consider also this week’s MEotW, the Mandarin word generally used to mean “language”, “yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言)”. As can be seen from this expression’s Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus information, the morphemes used in this Mandarin expression also focus on speech and the tongue, which is used for speech—writing is not even mentioned.

So, when we think of a language, a yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言), even a Chinese one, we should really be thinking about a way of speaking, a variety of speech, not any writing system, even one as traditionally revered and glamourized as Chinese characters are. Thus, the Mandarin language field is not the field in which we preach to and teach people who read and write with Chinese characters. After all, if people speak Mandarin but cannot read or write the Chinese characters, they still count as being among those we are trying to help in the Mandarin field. That’s because the Mandarin language field is actually the field in which we preach to and teach people whose mother tongue—their first language or way of speaking—is Mandarin.